


Law And Punishment

by ChouetteAlouette



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Black Romance, Dream Bubble, F/F, F/M, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-16
Updated: 2013-04-26
Packaged: 2017-11-18 18:54:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/564227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChouetteAlouette/pseuds/ChouetteAlouette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Redglare died, she had been sure that she was rid of that annoying lug for good. Things can never work out her way, can they?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

She wasn’t sure exactly what it was about the blood crazed subjuggulator that made her skin crawl and insides burn.

It could be the utter lack of care he displayed when going through his job. (She was growing tired of hunting down minor criminals only to be called off due to some indigo blood ‘taking care’ of the problem, then sent out again when it was discovered the unfortunate troll had been innocent.)

It could be the way that every inch of his hive and throne room were covered in a blaring collage of blood. (She was sure, after a few short and unwilling visits that she had smelled her own shade of blood decorating the walls.)

Or, perhaps it was how Her Imperious Condescension refused to tighten the slack leash she kept that monstrous shame on.

One thing Neophyte Redglare was absolutely certain of however, a subconscious thought that drifted through her mind as the noose tightened around her neck and squeezed the air out of her, was that she’d be happy to never have to see the ugly mug of The Grand Highblood again.


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She finally stumbled upon something she'd lost.

Neophyte Redglare, low in a crouch, waited patiently as her bubble slowly moved. With her ears perked and nostrils spread wide, her useless eyes shifted ever so slightly, an unconscious action she could never really lose. She waited patiently for something to change.

Dying and being sent to the dreambubbles was hard at first. She wondered deep in her mind when she first showed up, why her death seemed to go on forever. Why, whenever she blinked or thought it was over, the entire cycle would start up again with mindless limbs grabbing onto her and pulling her back. An endless loop.

Finally, after who knows how long, she noticed it. The smells were all off. Mindfang’s azure had dimmed away, the courtroom’s drab darkness swallowed you her even more than before. Her memories were faded, darkened with time. And it was at the realization that this wasn’t real anymore that she gained control of her bubble.

Although being dead was a strange and new sensation, it wasn’t something she could dwell on for very long. Exploration of this bizarre bubble world came next. She could walk, but found that if she focused, the locations would change for her, all on their own. Objects would do the same but not, unfortunately, people. At least, not her lusus.

What did appear instead of those few she called on were more faded fragments. They had no imagination, just repeated old lines as they went about scenes she’d already gone through. Despite it being her crowning moment as a legislacerator, there was only so many times she could relive her lusus and herself bravely capture the dreaded pirate captain.

Finally, after what could have been sweeps – but who could tell in such a timeless place? – she felt her bubble change all on its own. Walking out of what had previously been her forest home, she landed instead on the wooden deck of a ship. She frowned in confusion as the smell of sea water assaulted her. The ship bobbed lightly under her feet and she sighed, confused expression dropping. She must have accidentally triggered a memory.

“Well, well. If I haven’t stumbled upon another Redglare?” Turning towards the voice, Redglare froze as the scent hit her, carried with the light breeze. The bright scent of colour. The vibrant scent of colour. The scent that could only be described as purely alive – despite the circumstances. “So which memory is this? I don’t see your dragon around. Another daunting, yet failed chase? Daring battle?”

Redglare ignored the taunting. After sweeps of redoing the same scenarios over and over with nothing more than faded copies, this bright colour was like a slap in the face. “…You’ve died as well.”

The demeanor of the azure blur changed. Mindfang was probably frowning now. Redglare took a short sniff to check. There was no aggression in the air, just confusion. And suspicion. “You’re…more aware than the other memories.” The two were silent for a moment, standing still in their positions. Finally, Mindfang moved, crossing her arms. “You aren’t a memory, are you? You’re taking too long to fade away.”

A smirk flitted across the legislacerator’s face, followed by a short, hissing laugh. “So, who managed to kill you off after my failed attempts? They deserve to be thanked for doing society such a kind honour.” She taunted, lazily swinging her cane around. Confidence slowly leaked back into her.

Mindfang on the other hand, let out a bark of a laugh in response. “You’re one to talk.” She shot back. “You died pretty pathetically in my opinion. It didn’t even look like you were putting up a fight back then, allowing yourself to be so easily dragged off.” A wide smirk covered the azure blood’s face as well.

“Is that so?” She asked in reply. Reaching up, she fixed her glasses as she smirked after the pirate. A smug predator hunting down its prey. “Shall we have a little challenge? Prove which one of us is the best?”

Mindfang cackled, followed by the familiar undertone of small objects clacking together. Her stupid eight-faced dice. “Lets see if you can provide a better chase than those fake copies that litter this place, hmm?” Taking a step back, she waited patiently for the teal blood. “Why don’t you have a head start then?”

Pure excitement bubbled up in Redglare. A real chase. Not just a repeat of something she already knew the outcome of. Where she just had to cut and swerve at the right moment and she’d either win or shatter the bubble completely. Placing her hand on the head of her cane, she snickered. “You’ll regret that.”

Neophyte Redglare hadn’t been this sickeningly happy in a long, long while.


	3. Chapter 2

It didn't take long for Redglare to become suspicious of the dream bubbles.

After all, who wouldn’t eventually be suspicious of something like this? A world in which you had absolutely no control over what happened. Where you could go from calmly eating some delicious meal from your childhood to a ferocious bloodbath in a matter of moments. That seemed to happen more frequently to Mindfang though. 

For a while, Mindfang had stayed in the bubble with her. Not for pity’s sake or any sentimentally red garbage like that. Simply put…there was an obvious difference between the memoires and the real troll. And it felt good to be around the real troll for a while. 

Mindfang was just as fickle as ever though. She’d spent as long as she could in Redglare’s dreambubble until eventually she threw one of her dramatic fits. She’d left not too long later, off to go and find her matesprit, half hoping she wouldn’t be able to. If not, she joked, she’d at least have a black flame she knew for a fact was glubbing around in some water clogged bubble. 

So she was gone. And Redglare was alone again. 

Redglare had always been focused on her job. Her responsibilities as a legislacertor came first and everything else second. As a result, she’d spent most of her life hunting down Mindfang. She’d never truly had time to go out and seek proper and suitable trolls for quadrants. Sure, she’s had feelings before, but she hardly knew if they could be classified as quadrant worthy. Besides, why pin after a dead guy? 

So, alone again, Redglare began to wonder about the bubbles. About how the functioned, what it would take to control one fully, could they be directed about wherever it was that they were. She would wander along her dreambubble, always away from whatever memory was currently taking place. This tended to result in the trigger of another memory, but she pressed on regardlessly. 

Eventually, her bubble changed with a rough jerk, causing the troll to stop and pause in surprise. With a careful sniff, she examined where she was. It was…somewhat familiar. She knew for a fact that she’d been there before in her life, but it felt like such a long time ago that she found it difficult to…to place where she remembered it from.

“Who the fuck is that?”

Redglare tensed up before turning her way towards the low rumble of a voice. Her eyes narrowed as she tried subtly sniffing off in that direction. It was hard for her to get a clear image in her mind – there was just far too many colours assaulting her nose right now – but it was clear that purple stood out the most out of all of them.

“I asked you a motherfucking question!” The voice snarled.

Sighing to herself, Redglare crossed her arms in front of her, pokerfacing her expression as she wandered out of the shadowy darkness. “So, even the religious eventually end up in the same place as everyone else, hmm, Highblood?”

There was silence after her greeting, and the subtle sound of someone shuffling about in their seat. Finally, a booming chuckle filled the room, causing a light shake to run through her form. “The legislacerator, huh?” The Grand Highblood commented. The sounds of nails against his throne began to tick gently, an annoyance in her ears. “Didn’t expect you to show up in this courtroom again. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

Tensing up, Redglare’s grip on her arms increased. The nerve of those arrogant higher ups. “I would hardly go as far as to call your…elegant room a courtroom.” She replied stiffly. “You invaded my dreambubble. My appearance here was simply by chance, not intention.”

Another chuckle. Those damnable laughs of his could have been the very death of her. She'd often made that joke when she'd been alive. She found it unsurprising that she still would rather bleed from her ears than listen to it. Ironically, it wouldn’t surprise her if the very laughter caused her ears to bleed.

“You really sure it was chance?” He caught her attention once more with this question. He ignored – or probably didn’t even notice – as she frowned gently in response. “What makes you so sure that you weren’t calling for my bubble in that mind of yours? That you wanted to see me and these bubbles of yours just made that happen?”

Blinking and silent in surprise, her arms dropped from her side as she clenched her fists at her side. “How…why on Alternia would I? How dare you imply that I…” She spluttered, trying to regain the poker face that had slipped away.

Booming with laughter once more, her nose caught the purple blur moving around to point one freakish finger in her direction. “Meowbeast got your tongue, legislacerator?” He asked mockingly.

Huffing irritably and fed up with all of this, she turned on her heel and stormed out of the chamber, ignoring the chuckles that came after her. If she was lucky – although she was fairly certain her luck had left with Mindfang – he’d be nothing but a memory that would disappear completely once she was gone.

Neophyte Redglare wasn’t sure if he was more annoying alive or dead.


	4. Chapter 3

“And what, exactly, is it that you’re mad about?” 

Mindfang had returned. Earlier, when thinking of the inevitable return of the blue blooded pirate, Redglare had found a hint of excitement flourishing within her, eager for the return of company and some entertainment. Now, however, she was too busy being blinded in her annoyance to bother with the false niceties they usually exchanged. 

“Arrogant monstrosity, that’s all he is. I’d enjoy hearing his throne of skulls tumble from around him. Although I was never quite sure about whether or not it really was made of skulls. Never tried to brave that awful stench to get close enough. And a lot of help you’d be in deducing that outcome, with your status. Although, how likely do you think it may be that – why are you reeking of smug amusement right now?” 

Mindfang laughed at the confusion etched onto the teal blood’s face. Smirking and shaking her head, she leaned up against one of the benches in the courtroom (why on Alternia did she have to be lurking about here?) “No particular reason for it.” She taunted, crossing her arms. 

“Blatant lying in the courtroom!” (Ah, so that was why.) “State your true reasoning or be culled for lying to the law of the Empire!”

“How fitting of the law to be represented by a dead troll!” Mindfang laughed. “But if you insist, your Honourable…I was just thinking to myself about how amusing it was to see you so…disgruntled over his reappearance. Almost as if you missed him.” 

Scrunching up her face, Redglare scoffed and shook her head at such a bold faced declaration of stupidity. Had that been entered as evidence in court, she would have been laughed out of their presence by the sheer ridiculousness of it all. 

“Missing him is hardly how I would describe it.” She replied smoothly, picking up her cane and twirling it around in her grip. “It’s just unpleasant to see a reminder of one’s failures. How one tried so hard to uphold the law properly, as one of the law should only for a sopored troll to come down from his high throne of arrogance and rage to thrash around with those ridiculous clubs and-” 

“You know what you remind me of?” Mindfang interrupted suddenly, examining her nails in a carefree way. Redglare rolled her eyes, snorting to herself. Mindfang liked rambling about herself far too much. “You remind me of a troll I used to know. A disgusting and platonically pitiful troll. A sea dweller that longed to live on the land.” 

“Oh God.” Redglare groaned, covering her face with her hand. “Please don’t stare to ramble about your kismesis again.”

“Hush! Hush, hush. No words, just story time.” Mindfang ordered, sauntering over and wrapping an arm around her shoulders, crushing the shorter to her side. “Now, despite being one of the few pirates left on the sea – and quite a fearsome one, I’ll give him that – the poor sea dweller was absolutely terrible when it came to the quadrants. Really, how he wasn’t culled sooner is still a mystery to me.” 

“However, he was fortunate enough to land himself one with none other than yours truly. It was quite the romance, if I do say so myself. One strong enough to provide the most powerful of grubs later on, and surely a tale that will rock the oceans of Alternia for sweeps to come, a legend future wrigglers will dream to reach while ever constantly falling short and-” 

“Is there a point to this story?” Redglare grumbled sourly, staring off in a direction that wasn’t blasting a high and exaggeratedly dramatic voice in her path. 

“The point being!” Mindfang continued, squeezing Redglare’s arm gently in warning. “Being in a relationship with a troll so terrible at it as Dualscar was, I’ve learned to see the signs of desperation.” Spinning Redglare around to face her, Mindfang braced her hands on Redglare’s shoulders. “And you’re giving off so much of it, I’m surprised you haven’t begun to complain about the stench yet.” 

For a while, the two simply stared back at each other (Redglare seeing nothing and Mindfang seeing empty eyes). Finally, a loud shriek of a laugh ripped through Redglare’s mouth which made Mindfang wince away. 

“You’re delusional!” Redglare declared, placing the butt of her cane back on the floor. “And unless a drone suddenly appears in front of me and demands two buckets or else it will send me to a lower level of death, I don’t see myself rushing off to see that psychotic juggalo any time soon.” 

Crossing her arms as she watched the teal blood walk away, Mindfang sighed to herself. Denial, she decided, was not a proper state for a legislacerator at all.


	5. Chapter 4

Upon being immediately thrusted back into _his_ dreambubble, Redglare was convinced that the entirety of the remaining universe was conspiring against her. She also had a feeling Mindfang was somehow involved.

“You’re…back.” His voice was blank. He was calm for once, a placid psychopathic juggalo who couldn’t even be bothered with lifting his head from his hand. The surprise in his voice let her know he was off guard, and put a smug little skip in her reluctant step.

She snorted as she stalked closer to him. He cane stopped with a short noise as she stood in front of him, straightening herself out to the full extent of her height. “Being here is the last thing I would do by choice.” She announced. Her empty eyes glared at where she presumed his head to be. “I would have been happier never having returned here.”

“Now that’s harsh of you.”

Redglare’s eyes widened. The two of them were alone in his throne room, as was the norm for most dreambubbles. In the empty chamber, voices echoed off the rainbow stained walls. When she had first arrived, his voice reverberated from the direction of the throne.

It no longer was.

She whipped around to find him only to be literally swept off her feet. She could hear her cane clatter to the floor after her. She bit down on the hiss that nearly slipped out once her back slammed against the throne. She did her best to ignore the sickening crunch of bone beneath her. She struggled to return to her feet, but an overly large hand kept her trapped in place.

“You know, I’ve easily crushed pathetic traitors higher than you.” He said. His voice was ridiculously calm, but she didn’t need eyes to be aware of the shit-eating smirk that was on his face.

Redglare forced herself to let out a bark of laughter. Anything to keep some kind of composure. She reached up and dug her nails under the skin of his wrist. “Would you care to confess to your list of murders to try and go for a lighter penalty?” She snapped. “You died nothing more than a monster – the monster you were all your life!”

“The monster protecting the Empress.” He replied. The easy answer through her off guard for a moment; she hadn’t expected him to be even able of understanding the concept of loyalty, let alone performing it. “What about you, legislacerator? Allowing a criminal to escape is just as much of a crime.”

“Allowing?” She repeated, forcing her voice not to rise into a shriek. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “I allowed nothing. Mindfang was captured and would have been executed under normal circumstance. She’d have been doomed, but-”

“But you failed.” The Grand Highblood interrupted. One of his fingers moved and Redglare was soon grinding her teeth together so as not to scream out in pain. “And then you died…like a proper waste of fucking space.”

“You’re dead too!” She snapped back. Her blood was rushing past her ears now, causing her head to throb. She couldn’t see, but she could swear her world was tainted a darker black than usual.

The Grand Highblood chuckled low in his throat. “Of my own volition.” He taunted. He slowly removed his nail from her shoulder and watched as teal slowly bubbled out. Still chuckling, he began to smear the colour along her arm, ripping the sleeve of her clothes as he went. Slowly, a pattern began to form on her skin, bright teal against grey. “What do you say to that, lowblood?”

Snarling, Redglare’s patience snapped and she did the first thing she could think of. She shot her hand forward and grabbed onto The Grand Highblood’s hair. She tugged him forward and bit down roughly on his bottom lip, tearing so that blood come gushing out. She smirked and pushed him away before spitting some of the blood back onto his face. She could smell the look of surprise on his face, even without trying. “Go fuck yourself.” She snapped.

There was a moment of silence between them as Redglare panted to regain her breath. Finally, a low laugh rumbled out of his chest as The Grand Highblood smirked widely. “What did you think you were really here for?”


	6. Final

With Mindfang’s control over them having broken the moment she left, the trolls quickly dispersed from the courtroom without a word. No one bother to peak or pause to take down the body that hung from the ceiling. The corpse swayed slowly, the last signs of life already passed. Soon, every living soul was gone.

The picturesque crime scene was disturbed as the door slowly creaked open hours later. A shadow fell on the corpse which was now still. The troll slowly stepped towards it, heavy steps echoing in the courtroom.

The Grand Highblood made his way over to Redglare’s body. He inspected the limp corpse before making his way around to stand in front of it. Her hair covered her face and shards from her broken glasses scattered the floor beneath her.

From the doorway, a nervous troll hovered anxiously before taking a tentative step forward. “Sir?” He began. However, he immediately bit his tongue as a low growl emerged from the looming beast.

“I want that heathen’s plate on a platter.” He snapped, gaze focused on the hanging doll. It made no difference. He didn’t need to see, nor hear the troll’s terrified reaction to know that he had scurried off to go and spread his words around the ranks. The low blooded waste had that much common sense in him.

Once the door swung shut and he was sure he was alone, he raised one overly large finger and placed it under her chin. He slowly tilted her head upwards and was greeted by dull teal on a yellow background. Lifeless. Empty.

With a growl, he allowed her head to drop once more before he cut through the rope with a quick swish of his finger. Her body crumpled to the floor immediately, and though he chuckled at the display, there was no amusement in his voice. It was nothing more than a hollow, pathetic remnant of before.

Where was the fun in a soulless toy?


End file.
